


Compatible

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: (for pryce and cutter), (for rosemary and hilbert), Canon-Typical Violence, Crack and Angst, Drift Compatibility, Established Relationship, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Pining, canon-typical creepiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15308004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: Rosemary and Doctor Kelley test out an invention of Pryce’s.





	Compatible

“If we make it out of this, I’m never speaking to you again.” Rosemary hissed, ducking down behind the banister just in time to avoid the flaming arrow fired through the shattered window in the foyer below.

“Of course, blame _me_ for current predicament, and not mad woman who designed program, or your so-called ‘friend’ who volunteered us as subjects.” Karl hissed back with an exaggerated eye roll. He reached out and patted Rosemary’s wig, which was smoking from contact with the arrow. She swatted his hand away.

A loud thunk from the base of the stairs announced that the mob had finally managed to break down the door into the foyer. Karl looked around wildly and made to push Rosemary up the second flight of the grand staircase. She tripped a little on the long dress she was wearing before kicking off her shoes, hitching it up around her knees, and making to sprint upwards. Karl followed, glancing back over his shoulder every so often to ensure nobody was following them as they retreated further up into the castle.

They ducked through the small doorway that led to the tower, which Karl shut and bolted behind them. “There.” He huffed, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. “Should be safe up here. Towers are most easily defensible part of castles.” His eyes darted around the room. “Would be better if we had something more to put in front of the door but that didn’t stop them downstairs.”

Rosemary leaned against the curved wall of the room, chuckling, then wincing at the stitch in her side. “I believe that’s swords, Doctor Kelley.”

Karl’s eyes were still roving around the narrow room as though expecting a heavy armoire to suddenly materialize amidst the stone steps for him to use to block the door. “What?”

“Swords. Towers are more easily defensible from swords. Because of the way they spiral.” Rosemary took a deep breath, swore, and made to adjust her clothing. “Damn dress. Damn corset. When we get out of here I’m taking a long, hot bath and then putting on my robe for the rest of the weekend.”

“Your physical body is not actually experiencing any discomfort.” Karl pointed out.

Rosemary sighed. “I suppose not.” She leaned against the wall and frowned as she thought. “I can’t imagine you’re very comfortable either, though.” She said, gesturing at the long, spiraled horns that grew out of Karl’s head.

“No.” He admitted, pushing up his glasses. They slid right back down his nose again, no longer being the correct size for his rather feline face, and he made a small sound of exasperation. “I will be very glad to go back to reality, as well.”

Rosemary nodded. “So… what now?”

Somewhere else in the castle, a small jeweled egg glistened in the dark.

 

_Twenty-Three Hours Earlier…_

 

“Rosemarin, I have a favor to ask.”

Rosemary looked up from her desk in surprise. Adriane was standing in her doorway, wringing her hands and looking mildly flustered, a look which on Adriane meant she was near her wits’ end.

“Come in and shut the door. Would you like coffee? I can make coffee.” Rosemary gestured to the coffee pot she kept on the counter behind her, but Adriane shook her head as she sat down on the very edge of the chair in front of Rosemary’s desk.

“You and Doctor Kelley are close, yes?”

Rosemary blinked, startled. “I… we spend time together. I don’t know if I would call us close.” _Only because you’re too worried about what might happen if you were to admit aloud that you care for him_ , a small voice whispered in the back of Rosemary’s mind. She brushed it away.

“Enough time that you could convince him to enter a simulated environment with you?”

Well. That certainly hadn’t been what Rosemary had been expecting from this conversation. “What’s this about, Adriane?”

“Pryce needs two volunteers to test her latest work on consciousness and neural mapping.”

“And you want me and Kelley? Why?”

Adriane shrugged, looking at a point over Rosemary’s shoulder. “I like you and I know both of you have the capability for introspective problem-solving that much of Goddard with the necessary security clearance to do this task lacks.”

Ah. That would tend to limit the pool of candidates, wouldn’t it. Most of the specialists Goddard employed were antisocial to the point of neurosis. Rosemary wasn’t sure she didn’t count herself and Kelley among them. “How will this mapping work?”

Adriane waved a hand impatiently. “The subjects will enter an artificial dream state and work through a user generated simulation to find a solution to a problem.”

Rosemary nodded again, her face set in a grim line. “Have you spoken to Doctor Kelley about this yet?”

“No. Do you want me to?”

“No.” Rosemary sighed. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Adriane, but I don’t think this would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Doctor Kelley and I spend time together, yes, but I’m not sure we would be able to do something like that.”

Adriane sat back in her chair, looking pensive. She seemed to consider her next words carefully. “Do you have something in particular you’re trying to hide?”

“Do any of us not have something to hide from each other here?” Rosemary said with exasperation, thinking of the rows upon rows of hidden knowledge that Adriane was responsible for curating and storing. “You should know that better than anyone.”

“Perhaps.” Adriane stood up. She seemed much more at ease now she had made her request, her expression sliding back to neutral.  “But perhaps you should consider the possibility that whatever you feel you need to hide from Kelley is not such a secret to the rest of us.”

Rosemary’s blood ran cold. “What are you trying to imply?”

Adriane looked very slightly apologetic. “Pryce asked for the two of you specifically. I am merely passing the request along.”

“So much for volunteers.” Rosemary snapped, rearranging the papers on her desk to avoid looking up. “I’d have expected this from Carter, but not from you.”

“Oh, Carter’s well aware of what’s going on. I thought this might be less anxiety inducing coming from a friendly face.” She really did sound sympathetic, that was the worst part. Rosemary sighed.

“I’ll talk to Doctor Kelley this afternoon.”

“Good.” Adriane made to leave the office, then turned back with her hand on the door. “And Rosemary?” She opened her mouth and then closed it again, her brows knitting. “Everything will be alright.” She said, very abruptly, before sweeping out of the room and closing the door behind her.

Rosemary stared after her, not reassured in the slightest, a mess of emotions churning in her stomach.

 

“I can’t believe you’re giving up the opportunity to test this technology first so that you can play matchmaker.” Miranda said without looking up from what she was typing, her voice heavy with disgust.

“Now, Miranda.” William chastised her.

“Don’t take that tone, you know I’m right. What are you gaining from this other than the personal satisfaction of putting Epps and her pet scientist in a situation designed to aggravate the interpersonal conflict that-“

“Miranda.” William cut her off. “We already know they’re fond of each other. Who else do you suggest we use to calibrate this technology?”

Miranda all but snarled at him as she turned around to face him at last. “We could use _us!_ If anything went wrong I could reset you or me or both of us afterwards, you know that.” Her eyes glinted in the dim light of her lab.

William shook his head. “The situation with Epps and Kelley isn’t going to go away, they’re both too stubborn and too used to having rules bend for them. In fact, it’s shocking we haven’t had similar problems more often, given the kind of people Goddard tends to attract.” He ignored Miranda’s tch of disbelief. “We need some way to determine whether we can allow such associations to continue, and a concrete way to _discontinue_ ones that can’t.”

Miranda threw her hands in the air, a gesture which made William smile a tiny bit. He could always tell when she’d decided giving him what he wanted was less trouble than continuing to argue. “It strains credulity that I’ve invented you a machine that can rewrite memories and you want to use it as some kind of… personality test.”

William laughed, delighted, and strode forward to take her hands and pull her up from her chair. “It’s about time there was a useful one. The Meyers-Briggs test is just so passe.” She quirked an eyebrow. “Now, are you done working here? Can we go eat dinner?”

Miranda sighed indulgently and started shutting down her computer.

 

Rosemary had no idea how to broach the subject. She couldn’t very well just come out and say, after Kelley had brought dinner over to her apartment and spent the last half hour chatting amicably like nothing was wrong, “Pryce and Carter know we’re still seeing each other against their direct orders and have prepared some kind of terrible punishment for us tomorrow in lab 1.” That was probably exactly what she _should_ say, so they could go into whatever it was with eyes open and united, but she just… couldn’t do it. Several times she opened her mouth to speak only to close it again in frustration. Kelley evidently noticed.

“What is bothering you?” He asked as he took their dishes to the sink and began washing up. “Or would you prefer not to talk about it?”

He was so considerate, he was always so damn considerate. He was impossible and unbelievable and… she stopped her despairing train of thought before it could get to its destination and gave him a cheery smile.

“Would you, uh, come with me to do a favor for Pryce tomorrow?”

 

 

“Carter tells me I need to let you know how this is going to work.” Pryce said briskly, strapping Rosemary into a chair and placing a number of sensors on her head. “The two of you will enter a dream state. You will remain there until you’ve solved the puzzle your minds create for you to work on. I’ll monitor your brain scans and make notes for my research.”

“How long will this take?” Kelley asked, surprisingly calmly Rosemary thought, given that he’d essentially walked into this blind on Rosemary’s request, and now Pryce was securing his wrists to his chair with straps and inserting an IV into his arm.

“However long it takes you to work through the situation your minds come up with.” She said, her tone bored. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour in real time.”

“What about from our perspective?” Rosemary asked as Pryce inserted an IV into her arm as well.

“I’m sure I don’t know, this is the first test of this technology. You could be in there for years.”

Rosemary’s fingers twitched on the handle of the chair. “Years?”

“Hmm.” Pryce said in response. She turned around and picked up a syringe off her table, giving it a small flick before she injected it into Rosemary’s IV. “You can’t be hurt or damaged in any lasting way during this procedure, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were you.” Rosemary was about to protest, but Pryce was already sinking the needle into the tube running to her arm. “Enjoy yourselves.” She said with a very tight smile, moving around to administer Kelley’s shot. Rosemary turned to meet his eyes just in time to see him shoot her a look of trepidation before she lost consciousness.

When Rosemary opened her eyes she was standing in a field of flowers, alone. She looked around in surprise. Well. Maybe it would take time for Kelley to show up? They were both supposed to be here, weren’t they? This place was a construct of the both of them, he had to turn up somewhere.

In the mean time, Rosemary strolled through the flowers. They weren’t all the same, like the few flower fields she’d driven past as she made her way around the southern US for her regular inspections of Goddard’s factories. She’d never seen such a variety of plants in one place before. Poppies and irises and sunflowers and daffodils and roses and others she didn’t recognize grew all around her. The sun was warm but not unpleasantly so, and there was a winding dirt path through the field laid out ahead of her. She began to walk, wondering whether the unfamiliar plants were Kelley’s addition to the place, if she didn’t recognize them. Kelley liked plants. He had a number of hanging pots in his apartment.

Rosemary stopped walking and peered down at one particular plant as she passed. Ivy, but with an odd blossom on it. Did ivy flower? Rosemary wasn’t sure but she didn’t think so, and she certainly didn’t think it likely that ivy blossoms should resemble large green roses, nor heads of lettuce, but somehow this did appear to be both. She leaned down and plucked the bloom, twirling it between her fingers. It had no thorns.

The sound of hoofbeats startled Rosemary into dropping the flower, and she straightened up to look around expectantly for the source of the sound. Surely that was Kelley turning up at last, although why he’d be on a horse she had no idea.

It was, in fact, him, coming towards her on a white horse and looking incredibly surprised to be doing so. “Rosemary?” He called to her as he approached.

“Kelley! I was starting to wonder if I was going to be stuck here alone!” She said, trying to keep her tone light and teasing. He didn’t look amused.

“I have no idea how to stop or get off this animal.” He looked to be trying to pacify the horse, which was picking up speed as it approached Rosemary. He shook the reigns, which caused the beast to rear on its hind legs and break into a run. “Rosemary, move!” he shouted, and Rosemary jumped out of the way just in time. Then, acting on a split second impulse that it was somehow what she was supposed to do, she grabbed his sleeve as he went past and pulled him from the horse.

He tumbled to the ground, her going with him, the pair of them crushing several plants as they fell. Rosemary landed on her back with him sprawled on top of her, and for a moment she just stared at him.

“What are you wearing?” She asked before she could stop herself. What he was wearing was a billowing white shirt that made her think unavoidably of pirates and princes and fairy tales, and very tight pants, and boots with a short heel on them.

“What are _you_ wearing?” he echoed her, and it was only then that she learned she was dressed following a similar motif, in a long gauzy dress and a brocaded bodice.  

“I… don’t know.” Rosemary said. She continued to stare at him for a moment (they were rather close together and if the whole thing hadn’t been happening to them as a result of some new technology Goddard wanted to test out, and also ridiculous, it would be been romantic) before pushing him off her and clambering to her feet. She gave him a hand up and brushed dirt off her dress.

“This is certainly not what I expected when Pryce said ‘dream state’.” Kelley chuckled. “But am not complaining.” He leaned down and plucked a bit of heather from the ground and offered it to Rosemary, who tucked it into the top of her bodice with a small smile. She felt much more comfortable here now she wasn’t alone.

That train of thought lasted about ten minutes of walking along the dirt path together. It became clear to them, without any visible signs but through that strange knowledge one gains when one is in a dream, that there was no way to proceed forward through this field.

“Since we’re not going to get anywhere walking maybe we could stop and sit down for a moment?” Rosemary suggested. Kelley stared at her.

“Surely we must get somewhere. Pryce said this was problem-solving exercise, and I fail to see what problem exists in an endless expanse of flowers.”

Rosemary shook her head and sat down in the grass to one side of the path, plucking another of the strange green rose-cabbages and passing it absently from hand to hand. “Neither do I, but I also know walking isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

Kelley shrugged and joined her on the ground, stretching his legs out in front of him with what looked to be discomfort for the tightness of the pants. Rosemary graciously didn’t comment.

“If we’re going to be stuck here for a while, care to identify this flower?” Rosemary passed him the plant, and he took it with an odd expression.

“What makes you think I would know what this is?”

“You like plants.” She pointed out. “I assumed that explained why I only recognized some of them.”

“You think my mind is supplying the flowers.” Kelley said evenly. Rosemary nodded.

“If this is a shared dream some things should come from you and some should come from me.”

“Sensible.”

“Of course, that also means that we should be able to predict what’s going to happen fairly easily but so far that hasn’t been the case.” Rosemary continued with a small sound of exasperation. “I have no idea what we’re meant to do here that could be classified as collaborative problem solving.”

Kelley hummed in agreement. “I agree with your logic, but while I recognize everything else, have never seen _this_ before in my life.” He stared down at the plant for a moment, then plucked one of the petal-lettuce leaves off and popped it in his mouth.

Rosemary widened her eyes in concern. “Doctor Kelley-“

“Is perfectly fine. Tastes a bit like begonia.” He held it out to her. She gave him a pointed look and didn’t take it.

“If something bad happens because you ate that plant-“

“Pryce said we can’t be killed here, so even if it is poison-“

“Are you not picking up on the underlying theme of this situation?” Rosemary snapped. “The outfits, the flowers, this strange plant? It's fairy tales. It wouldn’t feel out of place at all for a witch to appear and curse you. You might not die, but this is a dream and stranger things could happen instead.”

Kelley looked chastised and a little bit embarrassed. “I am sorry, I’m not sure what compelled me to eat that, it was just…”

Rosemary nodded, thinking of pulling Kelley down from the horse earlier. “Maybe you were supposed to.”

A crack of thunder in the distance seemed to confirm her words. Rosemary stood up, pulling Kelley with her, and squinted towards the horizon. The landscape had changed while they were sitting down, and were once the field stretched for miles, there was now rolling hills in the distance.

“Eating the plant changed something.”

They looked at each other as lightning flashed across the sky, followed by another thunderclap. The sky behind them was beginning to fill with dark clouds.

“Unless you want to get rained on, I suggest we head towards the hills that just appeared. By dream logic we should find some kind of shelter there.” Kelley said with a small smile. Rosemary nodded.

What they found was an old castle with moss creeping up its face, surrounded by overgrown thorn bushes.

“Hmm. Appears that you were right about fairy tale motif. Shall we go inside?” Kelley asked.

Rosemary was about to respond when a large crack of thunder split the air overhead and rain began to pour down on them. The discussion was made pointless by the downpour as they sprinted up the steps and entered the foyer, surprisingly warm and dry given the castle’s outward appearance.

Rosemary patted her wig and brushed water droplets off her gauzy dress sleeves. “Was there any point to that question, Doctor Kelley, or did you just want to- Kelley?”

Kelley had collapsed almost as they’d crossed the threshold and was curled up in pain on the floor of the foyer, his eyes shut tightly and a hand over his mouth to keep himself from crying out. Rosemary slammed the door shut to block out the wind and the rain that were picking up outside and hurried to his side, her skirts billowing out around her as she dropped to her knees.

“Kelley, what’s the matter?” She turned him to look at her, and he jerked away from her touch. He removed the hand covering his mouth, and then he was screaming, a sound that rattled the windows and brought dust down from the ceiling and shook Rosemary to her core, although not as much as what came after the scream. Kelley was changing before her, his muscles stretching beneath his flesh, his limbs lengthening, his face contorting. His hands grew into claws and horns sprung from his head and Rosemary could only watch, in stunned silence, as he turned into a monster before her.

“Well.” He said after several minutes during which he had remained curled on the floor, struggling to catch his breath, and she had slowly edged back towards him and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “This part… my dream, or yours?” His tone was light, but when he sat up to look at her, he grimaced as though he was still feeling whatever transformation he had just gone through.

Rosemary shook her head, unable to think of anything to say. Instead she scooted across the floor on her knees and pulled a very surprised Kelley into a hug.

They held each other for a long time, shivering together on the floor of the foyer of a castle, in a dream or a nightmare they had come up with together.

 

It rained for a long, long time. The pair explored the castle and learned it was entirely abandoned. Not even mice or talking furniture seemed to live there. They found a bedroom with a four poster bed spread with a blanket covered in stars, a wardrobe full of dresses and more of the same billowy shirts Kelley had been wearing, and a greenhouse full of edible plants, although thankfully no more of the odd rose-cabbages.

“I told you something bad was going to happen if you ate that plant!” Rosemary hissed the next morning, as they stood in the kitchen together, Kelley chopping onions, Rosemary trying to clean out the stew pot that had apparently been hanging over the fireplace for the last hundred years, if the amount of dirt and dust inside was any indicator.

Kelley sighed and set down his knife, pushing his glasses up his nose. They slid right back down again. “Rosemary. I apologized. Do not know what else you want from me, considering I am already the one suffering effects of eating said plant.” He scratched at an ear, which had migrated to the top of his head behind his horns and grown in size and furriness by an alarming factor. “But since being in a dream does not seem to prevent us from feeling hunger or exhaustion, could we save this conversation for after soup is prepared?”

Rosemary nodded, turning back to what she was doing. “Sorry. I’m frustrated we haven’t made any more progress through whatever this all is.” She gestured around at their surroundings with the cloth she had found in the sideboard, which was probably much too expensive to be using to clean. “It seems like we can feel it when we move forward. When we do something correct.”

“Like finding a piece of a puzzle.” Kelley said in agreement, returning to chopping. “Coming inside the castle was the last one.”

“Exactly. We should have found another by now.”

“Has been one day, Rosemary.” Kelley reminded her, his tone gentle. “Do not worry.”

Rosemary did worry, though. She worried because Cutter and Pryce had picked them for this for a reason, and would no doubt take satisfaction or even pleasure in allowing them to be hurt for… what? For enjoying each other’s company? Nothing good was going to come of this, regardless of the permanence of any physical sensations in a dream.

They finished cleaning and chopping and set the soup to boil on the fire while they continued to explore the castle. Rosemary expected to find a spindle and thread, or an enchanted rose, or maybe some fairies around every corner, but it continued to be a perfectly empty and somewhat dirty old building. There were no more sudden compulsions to do things,no feeling that they had progressed.

Devoid of anything else to do, and aware that Pryce had said they could hypothetically be stuck here for years, the pair began to clean the castle. They found an old wine cellar and took the alcohol that had long since turned to vinegar to use for the flagstone floors and the bathroom fixtures. They picked lemons from the trees in the back garden and used the juice for the brass pots in the kitchen. They shook out the dust from the rugs and hung the blankets and sheets outside to dry after washing them. Kelley, it transpired, knew how to make soap from ashes, which they had plenty of in every fireplace in the castle.

“Are we going to do anything about the ballroom overlooking the garden?” Kelley asked Rosemary after nearly a week of cleaning, as they ate homemade bread and yet more soup in their newly cleaned dining room.

Rosemary rubbed her shoulder, which was rather sore from spending most of the day with her neck craned while she dusted the extensive library. “We would need something to use as polish, I don’t think vinegar or lemon juice on a wood floor is the best idea.”

“There is oil in the kitchen.” Kelley said.

“Well, if you want to spend all of tomorrow on your hands and knees rubbing oil into the floor, you’re welcome to it.” Rosemary sighed. “I, however, am going to spend tomorrow taking a very long, hot bath, now that we have running water, and then looking through the library to see if there’s anything useful in there since I finally managed to get all the dust and spiders out.”

Kelley nodded and went back to his soup. Rosemary watched him for a while, taking in the horns, the ears, the odd wrinkles on his face. Even as an animal he was nearly hairless. It was very strange to sit here with a person whom she otherwise loved dearly and see an unfamiliar face look back at her. She wondered if looking through the library would even yield any new information. She’d looked everywhere in the castle and hadn’t been able to find an enchanted rose, which she was pretty sure was in integral part of the beauty and the beast story, but then again: he’d eaten that odd plant at the very beginning. This was a dream and wouldn’t necessarily have to follow the same fairy tale the entire way through. And besides, it had been a number of years since she’d spared more than a passing thought to fairy tales of any kind. It did seem, though, that if they were in a dream which was pulling from their combined memories and experiences, then a library would be a good place, metaphorically speaking, to represent the accumulation of knowledge. Maybe she’d open a book and the answer would come to her. Spending the next day looking through the library was certainly more appealing than spending the next day doing yet more cleaning.

Rosemary had a long soak in the clawfoot tub he next morning, then got dressed in the most comfortable of the dresses in the wardrobe. She made her way down to the kitchen and took some of the fresh bread from the previous day with her to the library, noting that Kelley seemed to have decided to clean the ballroom after all- he’d already risen and left the bedroom by the time she’d woken and hadn’t been in the kitchen, either.

The library really was quite huge, and didn’t seem to be organized in any particular way. The first shelf Rosemary looked through had books French impressionism, anatomy, and, discongruously, several books on the show The Twilight Zone. That seemed to confirm Rosemary’s suspicions that the library was the dreamscape’s representation of their combined knowledge, and she went off in search of books that could be journals, struck with a sudden curiosity.

There were journals. Dozens of journals, full of her own handwriting. She opened one at random and found her own thoughts and feelings about Adriane approaching her for this experiment written out for her to see.

Rosemary slammed the journal closed and shoved it back onto the shelf at random, moving away to look at something else with her hands trembling slightly.

By the time the sun was setting through the mullioned windows, Rosemary had made no progress towards figuring out what to do next, but she had learned some very interesting things about cephalopods and perhaps a bit too much about Kelley’s interest in them. She made her way to the garden to pick some tomatoes and greens to make salad, and bumped into a tired but satisfied looking Kelley, who was filling a small basket with herbs.

“Rosemary! Did you find anything useful in the library?” He asked, smiling at her with an odd excited look in his eye.

“No, but I take it _you_ found something.”

Kelley shrugged. “I… well. After dinner.”

Kelley made salad, and roasted vegetables with herbs, and they opened several bottles of wine until they found one that was potable. Dinner was a quiet affair, and as they were taking things back into the kitchen, Kelley turned to Rosemary and frowned, as though he wasn’t sure where to start.

“I cleaned the ballroom today.” He said. “I thought… this is beauty and the beast, yes? This fairy tale?”

Rosemary tilted her head. “I was thinking about that and I’m not sure. It seems that this is several fairy tales thrown together. Beauty and the beast does seem to be the dominant one, though.” She said, staring pointedly at Kelley’s horns. He blushed slightly.

“Then perhaps we should utilize the ballroom.” He said, taking another sip of his wine and looking away from her. Rosemary stared at him for a moment and then started to laugh.

“I don’t see how that would help. In case you weren’t aware, there’s no room in this castle with a flower under a bell jar, so I don’t think the parallel is exact. And besides,” she began, cutting Kelley off before he could respond. “It’s been more than a couple years since I read any fairy tales but I’m fairly confident the end of beauty and the beast was that the girl loved the beast and so he went back to being human.” She looked at Kelley more softly. “I... I think you’d have turned back by now.”

This time Kelley blushed crimson, and Rosemary felt her face heat up as well. She looked away, clearing her throat. “But if you think it’s worth a try-“

“I do.” Kelley said quickly.

“then let’s try.”

 

Rosemary looked through all the wardrobes of all the bedrooms of the castle looking for an appropriate dress. She found one at long last, and tightened herself into a corset with a minimal amount of grumbling before slipping the dress over top. It really was very nice, and if she didn’t feel so silly about the idea of acting out a fairy tale with Kelley she’d even have been please with how she looked in it.

If Rosemary looked nice, Kelley looked incredible, ears and horns and clawed feet and all. He bowed to her at the door of the ballroom and held out his hand, and Rosemary took it, feeling more than a little self-conscious.

“This is really quite ridiculous.” She said as they entered the room together. “We don’t even have music.”

Kelley shrugged. “Do you mind being ridiculous with me?”

“Oh. Um…” Rosemary realized that no, she didn’t. If ever there was a time to embrace all the dangerous sentimental things about being attached to this man, now, while they were in a ballroom in a dream together, seemed like an appropriate occasion. “No, I don’t.”

“Good.” And he pulled her into an inexpert but very cozy waltz.

 

They only danced for a short while before Kelley stilled, and Rosemary looked up at him from where her cheek was resting in his shoulder.

“Did you feel that?” he asked.

“Feel what?” She responded, and then it hit her like a wave at the ocean, that feeling of a something slotting into place. She inhaled sharply. “You were right.”

“It worked.” He murmured, sounding stunned.

Rosemary swallowed, looking around the room as she stepped away from Kelley very slightly. “What happens next?”

There was a rumble of shouting from outside, and then the unmistakable sound of something large and heavy being thrown through a window in another room.

“It would seem that next is a mob.”

 

_“Would be better if we had something more to put in front of the door but that didn’t stop them downstairs.”_

_Rosemary leaned against the curved wall of the room, chuckling, then wincing at the stitch in her side. “I believe that’s swords, Doctor Kelley.”_

_Karl’s eyes were still roving around the narrow room as though expecting a heavy armoire to suddenly materialize amidst the stone steps for him to use to block the door. “What?”_

_“Swords. Towers are more easily defensible from swords. Because of the way they spiral.”_

...

_“So… what now?”_

Kelley threw his hands in the air. “Do not know. You said there is no magic rose in the castle?”

“No, I think the rose was that lettuce thing you ate that started this all off.” Rosemary pointed out.

“But you also said that this is not purely following plot of single fairy tale.” Kelley said. “Perhaps we need to find a different object.”

Rosemary hadn’t considered this but it made sense. “Good. What do you think we should be looking for?”

“A duck.” Kelley said. He didn’t sound very confident.

“A _duck_?”

“An… egg? Perhaps?”

“Why an egg?” Rosemary asked, but she already knew the answer.

“Tale of Koschei the deathless was an egg.”

“Do you remember seeing an egg anywhere?” Rosemary demanded. Kelley shook his head. “Me either.” She stood up from where she was leaning against the wall. “Okay. Think. Where would you put an egg in this castle?”

“Rosemary.” Kelley said with exasperation. “If you do not know where the egg is, why would I?”

“One of us should! Every single thing that has happened so far has felt correct and predictable to one of us, so _think_. Where is it?”

Kelley stood there, his eyes wide and a horrible expression of helplessness on his face, and Rosemary realized that she didn’t need him to know, because _she_ knew. She pushed Kelley aside and flung open the door, running up the hall away from the approaching mob, Kelley close behind her. They burst through the door into the master bedroom they’d been sharing and Kelley dragged the chest of drawers in front of the door. Rosemary made her way to the bed and stuck her hand under the mattress, pulling out a small black egg covered in jewels. It glittered as she turned it in her hand, and she stared from it to Kelley.

“In the story Marya Morevna smashes the egg and Koschei dies, correct?” Rosemary whispered.

Kelley nodded impatiently. “Hurry up.” He said. “Am ready to return to the real world.”

Rosemary’s eyes fell back to the egg in her hand. It was oddly light, no heavier than a regular egg, despite holding Kelley’s death inside it and being covered in diamonds.

“Rosemary.” Kelley said warningly. There was a loud bang against the bedroom door, and the chest of drawers scraped forward very slightly. Kelley went to stand before it. Rosemary continued to look down at the egg.

“Rosemary.” Kelley said more insistently. “Smash the damn egg.”

Rosemary’s hand dropped to her side, the egg in her palm. “I can’t.” She said.

“Of course you can.” Kelley sounded very irritated. “Is a dream, Pryce said we cannot be hurt and that we can’t leave until we solve problem. Obviously this is solution. Smash the egg and let’s go home.”

“Pryce and Cutter know about us.” Rosemary said. Kelley’s posture changed from irritation to confusion and a bit of fear. “Adriane didn’t volunteer us for this experiment, she was passing along their orders that we participate.”

“Ah.” Kelley’s face twinged in sympathy. “That would seem to change matters.”

“Yes, it does, Doctor Kelley.” Rosemary said, crossing her arms and cradling the egg. “How do we know if I smash this it won’t actually hurt you in some way? Or that Pryce will find a way to make it matter in the real world?”

Kelley nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “It would appear this was a different sort of test than we initially anticipated.”

“Exactly.” Rosemary said desperately, moving forward to stand right in front of Kelley. “And I don’t…” She swallowed. “I won’t be responsible for something happening to you.”

The chest of drawers moved forward another inch as the mob at the door slammed against it again. “Very well.” Kelley said, cupping a palm to Rosemary’s cheek, careful not to scratch her with his claws. “Then I will be.” He grabbed the egg with the other hand, and before Rosemary could do more than let out a startled cry, he had thrown it to the ground. The shell crumbled into dust and a puff of inky black smoke rose up into the air and dissipated.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then Rosemary felt a horrible stabbing pain in her stomach, and she let out a gasp as she doubled over.

“Rosemary?” Kelley said, his voice thick with horror as he caught her against him.

Rosemary let out a small chuckle. “I certainly wasn’t expecting _that_.” She said, her legs giving out beneath her as the pain spread across her body. Kelley lowered her to the ground, his back sliding down the chest of drawers so he could keep her in his arms.

“ _Blyad,_ I am sorry, Rosemary, I…” He watched in horror as a tear rolled down Rosemary’s cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to look at his expression. “I believed it would kill me, not you. If I had known-“

“You would have done the same thing, because you’re right, that’s how we get out of here.” Rosemary said, forcing herself to take even, measured breaths as she ran a hand along her abdomen. It really did feel like she must be bleeding out but there was no wound of any kind. Kelley held her more tightly, rocking her. She could feel him shaking.

“I am sorry anyway.” He whispered.

Rosemary nodded. “We’ll be fine soon. We’ll wake up in Pryce’s lab and then we’ll go have a drink in my apartment.”

Rosemary felt his hot tears hit her cheek, which had gone very cold. All of her felt very cold. She clung instinctively to Kelley’s warmth, to the feeling of his claws digging into her arm where he was supporting her. “It’s been fun, Dmitri.” She murmured against his chest. He let out a choked sound, and if she’d had the strength she would have reached up to kiss him, but as it was the world was going dark.

 

“Their heartrates are elevated.” Carter announced to a very bored Miranda Pryce, who got up from where she had been seated with her head leaning on one hand on the desk and wheeled her chair towards the screens with their brain read-outs.

“Finally.” Pryce muttered. “I thought these idiots would never get finished.”

“Do you have any guess as to how long it’s been from their perspective?” Carter asked.

Pryce began typing furiously at her keyboard. “No, but according to these EEGs Epps is the one who died.”

“That’s interesting.” Carter frowned, staring across the room and through the plate of glass into the medical theater where the pair were still strapped into Pryce’s machine. “I would have expected him to be the one who-“

“So would I, but like I told you when we started all this, I have no way to know the specifics of what’s going on in there, only big picture things.” Pryce flicked through her screen and pulled up a different biological readout. “If what I’m seeing is correct, though, you were right that they care about each other a great deal.”

“I didn’t need a fancy machine to tell me that.” Carter said in a sing-song voice, squeezing Pryce’s shoulder. “Now, do you want to do the psychological debriefing, or should I?”

“Go right ahead.” Pryce said, gesturing towards the door that connected the rooms. Kelley and Epps were just beginning to wake up, blinking blearily around at their surroundings and at each other.

 

“I trust you enjoyed yourselves?” Carter asked, looking at them with his hands in the pockets of his crisply pressed pants.

“Enjoyed ourselves?” Kelley said, voice bristling with indignation. “I just watched Miss Epps die while I could do nothing to save her.”

“Well, she is quite a bit older than you, Karl. I suspect if you keep your association up, you will eventually have to deal with such a thing.”

Kelley glared at him, his mouth shut tight, and Rosemary let out a strangled sound. Carter turned his attention to her.

“Which of you would like to do the interview, hmm? Doctor Pryce tells me that in order for her test to be completely effective, she’ll need to have her model of what roughly happened in there confirmed by one of the two of you.”

“I’ll go.” Rosemary said, and Kelley laid a hand on her arm. “No, Kelley, I should do it. I was the one who agreed to this. You should go home.”

“I am not going anywhere.” Kelley said, tightening his grip on her. “Surely Doctor Pryce’s model would be better served by having both of our perspectives?”

“He’s right, actually.” Came Pryce’s bored voice through the intercom. Carter smiled down at the pair like a shark.

 

After two hours of talking which were almost more exhausting than a week of living in a dreamscape, Carter was finally satisfied with the story they’d told him.

“Fairy tales.” He said thoughtfully as they got up to leave. “It’s appropriate in a way, I suppose.”

“Sir?” Rosemary said, her voice tired. She wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into bed, ideally with Kelley beside her, but that wasn't looking likely at this point.

“Isn’t that what everyone wants their romance to be? Like a fairy tale?”

Rosemary shot Kelley a startled look which he returned. Carter laughed. “It’s alright. Consider yourselves to have passed the test. Between what you’ve told me and what information Pryce has gathered I don’t think there’s any harm in allowing you to continue your association for as long as it’s enjoyable to you.”

Rosemary felt her jaw drop and immediately forced her face into one of calm indifference. “if you say so, sir.”

“I do say so. You two lovebirds have a good evening.” He made a shooing gesture with his hands, and Rosemary, with another startled look at Kelley, exited the room. He followed her a moment later.

Pryce joined him in the small office he’d been using to interrogate her subjects, sitting on the table and crossing her legs before looking down at William with a satisfied expression.

“So. Did you get everything you needed?” He asked, running a hand up her leg. She twined her fingers with his and smiled serenely.

“Yes, I think so. I should have enough information about the their minds to selectively remove and replace memories." 

“Excellent.” Carter all but crooned. “Let’s give them the weekend to themselves first though, don’t you think?”

“If you say so.” Miranda said with a shrug, pulling Carter up into a standing position and pressing a kiss to his neck as she slid off the table.


End file.
